1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to filing cabinets having a plurality of drawers which can be selectively extended into the open position, and, more particularly, to interlocking apparatus for such cabinets which automatically locks remaining drawers in the closed position when any one of the drawers is open.
2. Description of the Related Art
A frequently encountered difficulty in the use of cabinets having a number of drawers is that if more than one drawer is in the extended or open position, the entire cabinet may become unstable to the point of tipping over and thereby possibly injuring someone, or, at the least, dumping the drawer contents on the floor. Also, if two adjacent drawers are both attempted to be opened this can result in injury to the fingers by their being pinched between the drawers.
To avoid these difficulties, various drawer interlocks have been proposed operating to prevent the opening of a further drawer after one drawer is in the extended or open position, and yet when all drawers are closed, any one selected drawer may be opened. Although such interlocks have been known in the past, they have not been completely satisfactory in that some are not reliable resulting in jamming or failure to operate after a relatively short use life, while others are prohibitively expensive to manufacture in that they require a number of precisely machined parts resulting in an ultimate cost to the consumer which is unacceptably high. Still other known interlocking apparatus has been found to fail in occasionally allowing more than one drawer to open or sometimes resulting in none of the drawers being capable of being opened.